Saturday, April 8, 2017

More about Color: When I Met Muse. In poetry that turns to prose (why not?).

I.
The woman who weeps deep inside
is gone
met by a muse on a multi-colored hill.
She was alone until then,
arms grasping for something to hold onto,
but nothing quite fit.

On this spring afternoon above the Pacific - 
mustard colored hills rising up from a gray and restless ocean.
The sky so blue
with wisps of fog lingering like long silvery fingers on the verge of touching.
The mustard grass propelling her steps.  

Then the climb up the hill - 
she ascended
through the dark and dank redwood grove -
like emerging from a womb -
to a small hut on the top of the hill.  

As she walked,
a path was clearing,
but sometimes she stumbled over the rocks and 
tree limbs - these
detours and temptations.

II.
"I was glad to leave the redwoods and get to the clearing.   
Up a short hill to a small log-cabin overlooking the vastness of the hillside and the ocean.  
The air:  soft and cool and breezy.  The sky: bright blue.
Then  two short stone steps leading up to the threshold and I opened the unlocked door."

III.
She saw a room full of color
In my hiking boots, I stepped onto those steps somewhat clumsily and the tread did not hold. I grabbed onto the doorknob to keep from slipping. The door was unlocked so I opened it. I looked around at the room  and noticed that it was perfectly  furnished with some light coming through the front window and the window to the left.  A comfortable orange coach sat under that window with pillows of all different colors: turquoise, forest green, red and mustard yellow like the grass outside.  A coffee table filled with books sat in front of the coach.  I was ready to rest there when I saw, directly opposite the coach, a small wooden desk with a Tiffany lamp and a woman sitting and writing on a small computer.  That person did not look up at all as I entered the room, so intent was she at what she was doing.  She was about my age, my height, with hair and eye color so similar to mine.  When she finally looked up I saw her smile at me warmly and knowingly.  She was so close to looking like me that we could have been twins.  What she then said was so strange, I felt as if I was in a dream.  

She told me, 'I knew you would come;  I have been waiting for you.  Please come sit beside me and see what  I am doing'.

I felt no trepidation in joining her at the table.  What I saw as I walked over to her was that she was writing a poem that  said:

I am you
I have been waiting for you to show you yourself
I am you -
maybe you can call me the higher you; or your higher self
I contain your wisdom
I contain your colors.

Then she said: can you see all the colors around?  (It was true, as I looked at the room I saw color everywhere:  multi-colored paintings of exotic birds and landscapes; bowls and cups in the kitchen of all different hues, flowers in the garden outside of every color of the rainbow)

And then I knew that these colors were all the events of my life, and all my thoughts and feelings. This was my treasure tower, adorned with multi-colored jewels with all facets of color, of life, of heart, mind and of soul.   These were the colors I could use to express my joy of life.  They could be used to paint, to write, to dance, to sing, to speak, to listen, to engage in all around me.  I had these colors at my disposal no matter how colorless the world looked.  Black contains all the colors and I (and you) can pull them out when we need them to heal ourselves and others.  

This is when I met my muse and she taught me about color, my color, the color contained in everything."

Spring by Mary Oliver

Somewhere
  a black bear
   has just risen from sleep
     and is staring

down the mountain
   All night
      in the brisk and shallow restlessness
           of early spring


spring

spring
the flowers that bloom,
so happy to see them
where did they go and what did they do for the time they were gone
were they bundled up in ku?
mixing it up with the cosmic soup
like colors on a palette running down from the rain?
the energy of flowers springing forth from warmth
from the creative flow
from the power of the collective conscious
the golden source of it all.

spring
birthday
i sprung up on april 5 some years ago
from what soup?
same as the flowers?